Page 52

Story: Climbing Everest

The music playing softly through the speakers grates on my nerves, but I keep my focus on the numbers climbing on the digital screen after I wave my keycard and hit PH.

I can hear the raised voices the moment the car hits the right floor. When the doors slide open, my feet are already moving.

“Stop!” Everest is screaming. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Curses, grunts, crashes, bangs. Those are the sounds that meet my ears before I even step fully into the apartment.

“You motherfucker,” Maddox growls out.

He’s mid-swing as I turn the corner, but Brix blocks it and shoves him back. They’re both bleeding from their noses, their mouths, and Madd has a cut over his eyebrow.

The sparsely furnished place looks like a tornado hit it with shit knocked over or destroyed, glass glittering on the floor.

Everest has a sheet wrapped around her body, her fists holding it together in the front. She can’t move any closer or she’ll risk getting hit by a wild swing or getting her feet sliced open by shards and pieces of glass covering a majority of the floor.

What the hell did they break in here?

“Enough!” I bellow as I storm forward, physically wedging my body between them and shoving them apart.

That isn’t enough for Madd.

The fucking psycho has the balls to grab the gun from the back of my waistband and point it directly at Brix’s forehead.

“Pull the trigger, asshole. Go ahead,” Brix says in a deceivingly low, calm voice, holding his arms out to his sides not in surrender, but as a dare.

“So help me, if you don’t lower that fucking gun I’ll bury you both in the woods,” I threaten, my hand wrapping around the muzzle and forcing Madd to lower it.

I wrench it from his grip, though he doesn’t put up much of a fight.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Everest asks.

I glance at her over my shoulder. Her eyes are wide, there’s a clear bandage covering the tattoo Brix designed for her, but she doesn’t appear hurt. In fact, her lips are kiss swollen, there’s evidence of whisker burn around her mouth, and her hair is disheveled like she just got thoroughly fucked.

What’s confusing is her swollen eyes, the way the whites are slightly bloodshot, as though she’d been crying.

Brix lifts a hand and wipes the back across his mouth, smearing the blood across his chin and cheek.

Madd doesn’t bother wiping away the blood, simply continues glaring at the giant with nothing short of murder in his eyes.

“Look at her. Does she look like he hurt her?” I say, throwing my arm in Everest’s direction without actually looking at her.

Because honestly, I’m torn between throttling her for causing this rift between my brothers and ripping that sheet away so I can bury my cock in every single one of her holes.

Why the fuck would Madd care if Brix had hurt her? She obviously isn’t dead. There isn’t a single bruise on her.

So, at worst, Brix fucked her. We all planned on that. She is ours. She might become my legal wife, but we will all own every inch of that curvy ass body.

And we sure as fuck won’t be paying for use of it, either.

When Maddox starts in her direction, Brixton moves to put himself directly in his path, slapping both hands on Madd’s chest and shoving him back.

“Don’t fucking touch her,” he growls, his voice deep and full of warning.

The fuck?

“If the two of you don’t knock it the fuck off…” I let the threat hang in the air, mostly because I don’t know how to finish it.

Now I’m wondering if dragging Everest back was a bad idea, especially if she’s going to sow dissent in the ranks.